Is it best to test a niche through a free blogger blog first?

23 replies
I've usually just went all in when testing a niche. Buy a domain and start writing blog posts.

Today, I thought... maybe it would be better to start a free blogger blog, post some articles and see if those can rank. If so, then buy the domain, copy the posts over to it and delete the blogger blog.

Is this a good strategy before I invest in a niche site?
#blog #blogger #free #niche
  • Profile picture of the author xfairguy
    I think that it is better to go with your own domain.
    If you transfer from free blog to your own you will lost time on transfer you will need to build links again and so on.
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  • Profile picture of the author hockmasm
    i wasn't going to build back links. i was going to see if i could rank pages only using on page SEO. i found a niche that has very low competition for many keywords.. example only a few thousand exact match key phrases when using quotes in google.
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  • Profile picture of the author ErikNilsson
    Go with your domain first build some good backlinks keep the articles updated regularly with unique content you will see the results with in 3 months...
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  • Profile picture of the author travlinguy
    What's the benefit of posting your articles to rank on something you don't own?
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  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by hockmasm View Post

    Is this a good strategy before I invest in a niche site?
    No, it isn't: it's a very poor (and entirely unnecessary) strategy indeed.

    There are only really four (partly overlapping) groups of people who do this ...

    (i) People who are unaware of the unnecessary risks

    (ii) People who imagine that those are all problems that happen "only to other people" and that they'll be ok "if they stick to the terms of service"

    (iii) People who don't know that you can have your own reliably self-hosted WordPress blogs without paying anyone a penny for the blog, the theme or the hosting

    (iv) Very few people who still imagine that "they must rank well because Google owns Blogger" (seriously, there are still a few people who believe that).

    In other words, collectively, they're people who don't quite appreciate that it's entirely unnecessary and pretty ill-advised.

    If you want to see why so many who have tried are now advising others not to repeat their own mistakes, these threads will help ...

    Google Suspended My Innocuous Blogger Blog
    Squidoo/Blogger as primary website
    Blogger and deleted blogs?
    Blogger blog removed
    Wow Blogger Deemed All My Hard Work Spam
    Is blogger blogs worthy?
    have blogspot energy?
    is Wordpress really a better choice than Blogger in my case?
    Blogger Hosting...Is that ok??

    Of course it's possible to do your testing, and/or make some money, and/or derive some backlinks or do other things from a Blogger blog, but that doesn't make it a sensible thing to do: it's just completely unnecessary, when there are so many other, better, safer ways of doing exactly the same thing (also without paying!).

    Must brush up on my précis skills a little: I've only really said the same as Travlinguy, above, but he got it into 14 words.
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    • Profile picture of the author hockmasm
      Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

      No, it isn't: it's a very poor (and entirely unnecessary) strategy indeed.

      There are only really four (partly overlapping) groups of people who do this ...

      (i) People who are unaware of the unnecessary risks

      (ii) People who imagine that those are all problems that happen "only to other people" and that they'll be ok "if they stick to the terms of service"

      (iii) People who don't know that you can have your own reliably self-hosted WordPress blogs without paying anyone a penny for the blog, the theme or the hosting

      (iv) Very few people who still imagine that "they must rank well because Google owns Blogger" (seriously, there are still a few people who believe that).

      In other words, collectively, they're people who don't quite appreciate that it's entirely unnecessary and pretty ill-advised.

      If you want to see why so many who have tried are now advising others not to repeat their own mistakes, these threads will help ...

      Google Suspended My Innocuous Blogger Blog
      Squidoo/Blogger as primary website
      Blogger and deleted blogs?
      Blogger blog removed
      Wow Blogger Deemed All My Hard Work Spam
      Is blogger blogs worthy?
      have blogspot energy?
      is Wordpress really a better choice than Blogger in my case?
      Blogger Hosting...Is that ok??

      Of course it's possible to do your testing, and/or make some money, and/or derive some backlinks or do other things from a Blogger blog, but that doesn't make it a sensible thing to do: it's just completely unnecessary, when there are so many other, better, safer ways of doing exactly the same thing (also without paying!).

      Must brush up on my précis skills a little: I've only really said the same as Travlinguy, above, but he got it into 14 words.
      how do i get free hosting?
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      • Profile picture of the author Larry Leggett
        Originally Posted by hockmasm View Post

        how do i get free hosting?
        Go to 000webhost.com or zymic.com to get the free hosting. I have used both of these for my blogs.
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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
        Banned
        Originally Posted by hockmasm View Post

        how do i get free hosting?
        Reading through the little list of links provided for you, above, would readily have answered that question.

        That was what they were there for.

        But if even that's too much like hard work, I suggest you try freehostia.com, byethost.com or 000webhost.com. Each has relative advantages and disadvantages, but all three are pretty safe, longstanding and reliable free hosts successfully in use by many Warriors, fairly widely recommended, and all three will give you a free subdomain (just like Blogger does) and not put any advertising/buttons/branding of their own on your site (better than Blogger does).
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  • Profile picture of the author clever7
    If you are not so sure that this is the right niche, I believe that it is a good idea to create a Blogger blog and also a Squidoo lens to see how everything work into practice, and then move on buying your own domain, after understanding what you need.

    Testing before spending is a wise decision.

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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      Originally Posted by travlinguy View Post

      What's the benefit of posting your articles to rank on something you don't own?
      And even if you can rank them on the established platform, what makes you think those rankings will automatically carry over to your new domain/site?

      A domain name can be had for the first year for what, $2? Ante up and play the game...
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  • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
    Originally Posted by hockmasm View Post

    Is this a good strategy before I invest in a niche site?
    No.

    It's obvious you're just trying to minimize any losses, and that's probably a concern due to your previous efforts of going "all in", (as you put it), which have obviously failed.

    Instead of throwing shit at the wall, and hoping that it might stick, why don't you get help, or at least invest towards educating yourself?
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    • Profile picture of the author RogueOne
      Originally Posted by John Romaine View Post

      No.

      It's obvious you're just trying to minimize any losses, and that's probably a concern due to your previous efforts of going "all in", (as you put it), which have obviously failed.

      Instead of throwing shit at the wall, and hoping that it might stick, why don't you get help, or at least invest towards educating yourself?
      If you don't have enough confidence in the project to risk the small amount required, you might want to listen to John.
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      All The Real Marketers Are Gone. There's Nothing Left But Weak, Sniveling Wanna-Bees!
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  • Profile picture of the author lisakynan
    No way, go and register a domain!!
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  • Profile picture of the author jamesrich1
    You cannot get free hosting you just don't have to pay for the theme of the blog. Hostgator is a penny for a month. Do a Google search. At most you risk losing 7-10 for hosting per month and you ensure that you will not get your blog taken down for violating the terms of the free blog sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author ZerocooI
    I've usually just went all in when testing a niche. Buy a domain and start writing blog posts.

    Today, I thought... maybe it would be better to start a free blogger blog, post some articles and see if those can rank. If so, then buy the domain, copy the posts over to it and delete the blogger blog.

    Is this a good strategy before I invest in a niche site?
    I would just invest in a domain. You can get one for very cheap but don't buy it from your host. Places like Weebly (its not the best WYSIWYG but it works) will host a domain name for free. Just point it to the IP they give you. You can always move from there later if you want and take the domain with you. You would probably only have about $5 invested. I have a few sites on Weebly and never had a problem with downtime or overselling. Good luck.
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  • Profile picture of the author CollegeCEO
    Like everyone else has said, definitely buy your own domain and hosting. It costs like $10 to get a domain and 1 month of hosting.
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  • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
    Here's the thing.

    Say you register a domain, you build a site, and you invest a bunch of time and effort towards it - and it's not as successful as you'd like.

    Guess what?

    You have an asset - you can sell it.

    It might be worthless to you, but it might be just what someone else is looking for.
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    BS free SEO services, training and advice - SEO Point

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  • Profile picture of the author imoffersonline
    for many niche , i already seen many free blogs ranks in top 3 also with a few link, below than 10 backlinks.
    and really you no need to own a domain for them. but you wanna try for free blog then transfer it to own domain.
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    • Profile picture of the author PotPieGirl
      I'm about to be the weirdo here, but that's ok... I'm comfortable with that

      If you're curious about a keyword, and you already have a blogger blog that indexes and ranks well - sure, give that keyword a spin and see what happens.

      If that post starts to gain any leverage at all, then go get your own site. And then, edit your blogger post to push to your new site. Then, if BOTH rank, you have TWO in the SERPs, right?

      If you're on a shoestring budget, use the resources you already have to determine when and where to invest more money. As I said before, if you already have a blogger blog that indexes and ranks well, why NOT use it for testing purposes?

      Just my 2.5 cents...

      Jennifer
      ~PotPieGirl
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  • Profile picture of the author Randall Magwood
    I dont think that's a good way to test a niche. My version of testing a niche would be to get a site, put up a quick squeeze page, and use PPC to see if i can get a pretty good conversion rate. If the test is successful, i roll out with an elaborate marketing plan (that includes SEO and ranking articles), and more paid advertising - and lots of free marketing.

    If the test fails... scrap the project and test a new niche, and repeat the process.
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  • Profile picture of the author rosetrees
    I beg to differ, but I think that sometimes a free blogger blog can be a good place to start. I say that because that's how my best niche started. I had no idea how it would grow and as soon as it did, I purchased my own domain(s).

    To this day I have the blogger blog and it ranks well for some of its keywords. Remember - blogger is owned by Google. My cynical brain says they will rank a good quality blogger blog because they own it.

    That blog isn't one of my main sites, but it still ranks and its visitors climbed after Panda and Penguin. Go figure, as they say.
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  • Profile picture of the author kinyash
    When you are starting out any sort of business there has to be an investment. This is true both online and offline. Take the advantage of investing online being less costly that that of an offline business. Just buy yourself a domain. This will in itself motivate you to work to recoup your costs. Free or cheap is very expensive in the long run.
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  • Profile picture of the author curationsoft
    I suggest to have your own domain. you can do many things to monetize your site if you have your own site.
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